Nightmare
by MuchTooOld
Summary: Night was the worst time. His parents had died at night, it was hardest to protect Bolin at night, and night was when he had his nightmares... which more often than not lately were about her.
1. Chapter 1

He had never liked the night. Absolutely nothing good had ever come from anything associated with night. His parents had been murdered at twilight, he had had the hardest time protecting his brother in the darkness that pervaded the slums where they had settled, and, on those occasions that had did get a good night's sleep, it was when he had nightmares.

They had, up until a few months ago, been only about his parents and his brother. The ones about his parents were bad. He would relive their deaths in vivid detail, seeing each part of their flesh singe and the thuds of their corpses thudding onto the dark dirt as he hid behind the trash can his father had pushed him under. His mother's scream and the pain in his father's as he watched her die alongside him. And he after those dreams he would jerk awake and he would have the harsh scent of burning skin etched into his nostrils and that would be all he really could smell for the rest of the day.

If they were about Bolin, the nightmares were somehow worse. Bolin would be burning sometimes and he could do nothing to stop it. Any attempt to draw away the flams would only engorge them and Bolin would just burn faster. That was a dream that never went away, no matter how old he got. A nightmare that was becoming less and less common, although sometimes it would crop up, was the one where his brother was taken away by some stupid well-meaning orphanage and never being able to find him again. That one started to fade in his teens. No one wanted to adopt teenagers. But it had been replaced by a much, much worse dream about losing his brother. Now it was Bolin limply lying on the ground after his bending was taken away. And the once vibrant, cheerful brother was replaced by a broken, listless boy and he would know that somehow that it was his entire fault.

The dreams about his brother used to be the worst. The ones about his parents would leave him anxious and depressed for a few hours, but he knew it was just a memory. An awful, horrible, painful, soul-killing memory, but it was a memory all the same. The ones about Bolin were his fears, and he never stopped being afraid for his little brother. If any part of the dreams that haunted him at night ever came true in the day, he didn't know what to do. The thought of something bad happening to Bolin, was basically the worst thought he could imagine.

Or, it had been the worst thing he could imagine. Up until Korra had shown up and up until he had gotten to know her, nothing was worse than the thought of his brother getting hurt. But then he had had his first nightmare with her as the star. She had just been lying there on the ground, limp, possibly without her bending, and there had been nothing he could do to help. She would look up at him and he knew, he just knew from the look in her eyes that this, whatever had happened, was his fault, all his fault. He had woken up, the familiar feeling of his heart beating a thousand miles an hour against his chest.

Usually, if it was a nightmare about Bolin, he would simply look over and register that his brother was asleep across the room, and would slip back asleep, nightmares over for the night. But Korra was across the bay, he didn't get to see her until she showed up for practice, if she even showed up at all. He was so annoyed when she didn't come. Not only did it make them that less prepared for the championship, it just made the nightmare that much worse the next night, because even though he knew it would be all over the papers if she was hurt in any way, he needed to see with his own eyes.

It took him a while to figure out why he was having nightmares about Korra. It took him a bit to realize he cared about the loud, energetic, entrancing girl who had so abruptly fallen into his life. He just hadn't realized how much.

That is until Bolin had told him about their date and meeting Tahno. That night was one of the worst nights he had had in a long time. Korra had been sitting with Tahno's arm around her neck, giggling at him as he toyed with her hair, and for some reason that was so painful to see. Then Tahno lips had moved closer to her neck and… He had thanked whatever powers may be that Pabu jumped on his chest at that moment and woke him up. But when he went back to sleep the nightmares just got worse, much worse. Korra was lying on the ground, unable to move, looking at him, pleading for him to help her, as Tahno leered over her, running his hands slowly up her shirt. The waterbender shot him a look that informed him that he couldn't do anything if he tried. But the worst part is that he hadn't tried anything. He had just let him run his hands all over her.

He woke up in a cold sweat and he hadn't been able to really focus until he had seen her again the next day on the steps to the arena. Yes, they had argued over something she was totally correct on, but the most important thing was that she was okay, even though he had known she was never in any danger in the first place.

Then they had kissed and things had somehow gotten even worse at night. Now the nightmares involved both her and his brother. And he and Korra were together and that hurt him much more than it should considering she wasn't Asami, his girlfriend, or they hated him and that hurt even more, or worst of all Bolin and Korra were just unhappy and it was his fault and nothing he could do would repair their shattered friendship. Thankfully that one passed because for once, something in the real world was resolved and his mind could think of nothing more on the subject to torture him with. They were friends, even though deep down he wanted to be more than friends with her.

And things would've reverted to their natural cycle of his parents dying-something bad happening to Bolin-occasionally something awful happening to Korra horrible dream scheme that dominated his sleep pattern, but Korra had no idea how to not cause anxiety. At least he knew what Bolin was capable of, he knew where Bolin was going, and he pretty much knew the extent of his powers. But Korra was this unknown force and she always was out fighting, and to make it worse for him, she was expected to fight. And since she was stupidly heroic, she often went off without them, rising whatever insanely high anxiety levels he had way, way up.

So now there were a whole slew of Korra nightmares. If he was able to think positively about this whole thing, he would admit that he hadn't had to relive that awful night ten years ago as often and he hadn't had to witness the last of his family be killed or kidnapped in his dreams, but the costs outweighed the benefits. Because now, especially after that debacle of the championship, he had a front row seat to Korra being tormented in his mind.

Korra burning, sometimes it was his fault she was burning and sometimes he just couldn't stop it. This one was stupid, he was well aware. Korra was a better firebender than he was. Korra bleeding with him trying to stop the blood flow, but no matter what he did, it would just keep coming. She would waltz in fine the next day and he would briefly glance towards wherever she had been bleeding out in his dream, just to make sure. Korra sitting with another guy, he sometimes had a face, and sometimes he didn't, and loving it. That one made him feel so guilty and reaffirm his belief that he was an awful human being, especially when Asami would come in being sweet and loving. But that didn't stop the nightmares about Korra. Korra dead, Korra almost dead, Korra hating him, Korra sobbing for something he did… the nightmares about her just kept going.

And he didn't know what to do. He didn't want to care about someone else this much. He didn't want to be kept up at night by some woman who had strolled into his life and shaken it up. If anything, he wanted to have some sort of dream with Asami, his girlfriend. But they wouldn't come. And he knew that that meant that for some reason he cared more about Korra than her, and that wasn't right. But he did, and the longer he knew her, the more he did care for her.

And that meant the nightmares were just going to keep coming.


	2. Chapter 2

When she had been little, so little that she could barely recall these dreams, her nightmares were about getting lost in the Tundra. She would be out with her mother, visiting the very sick and helping mend broken homes, holding on to her hand as tightly as she could, letting her mother's presence comfort her. Or she would be out hunting with her father and they would be huddled in their make-shift home in the middle of the ice, her father's warmth protecting her. Then suddenly, they would be gone and she would be all alone with no one in the world.

But she would wake up and her parents would be right there and she'd laugh away whatever haunting memories the night had given her. She didn't give them much thought. It wasn't too often they came anyways.

By the time she had been taken away by the White Lotus, she had outgrown that particular set of nightmares. She was still so little, but somehow the thought of being lost in the middle of nowhere surrounded by nothing but ice didn't frighten her by that time. It probably had to do with the discovery that she was the Avatar and the fact that she, like most kids her age in the Southern Water Tribe, could find her way home in a blizzard in less than hour. But just because that set of nightmares were done and over with didn't mean she was home free.

Because once the White Lotus started to train her she began to realize whose shadow she was standing in and would always be standing in: the great and powerful and spiritual Avatar Aang, the Avatar who had ended a war and began a new country all before he was twenty years old. As she was often told, she had a legacy to uphold and the world was counting on her for protection. The new nightmare was that she just never did that. And the world wouldn't even know who she was and history would just forget about her. She would wake up with a pounding in her head and an aching sadness.

These nightmares were the first set that didn't stop. They were soon accompanied by a brand new one when she moved, more terrifying that the last. Amon taking her bending away and tearing away the only thing that made her special. She woke up screaming and she would be terrified for the rest of the day. She tried to pour all of her attention into airbending, but until she had confessed her fear, it had just got more and more intense.

Then the other nightmares came. The ones with her friends as the lead cast. Bolin getting hurt or Mako getting hurt. Mako just one day turning around one day and wondering who the hell she was because he hadn't seen her before. Bolin was sometimes was the one in that dream who didn't know who she was, but it was worse with Mako… and she was well aware why. She wished she didn't, especially after she got to know Asami more, but she knew why.

Asami had a set of nightmares all to herself as well. Mainly about her finding out her feelings towards Mako and ending their friendship. That saddened her, but the worse part of that dream was that she was more concerned with Mako ending their friendship. She liked to tell herself that it was just because she had already been threatened by it, but she knew it would hurt just as much if he had never even told her to drop it or their friendship would be over.

But maybe the worse one that she was having (along with sets of nightmares) was the one where everyone was gone, and it was just her, alone. She wasn't sure where they had gone or why they had gone, they were just gone. And there was no one around anymore and she was nothing.

She didn't know how to make these nightmares stop, she hadn't ever had nightmares that overlapped each other, and it scared her. She was scared of not being able to control her mind, of something she dreamed actually coming true, and she was terrified that she was weak because of it. Her worrying did nothing to help her nightmares. They just kept coming.

_Bleh, I don't really like it, but I don't really want to take the time to fix it. I've been on vacation for a bit so I have lost all of my skills of writing, how few they may be… So enjoy _


End file.
